In a press release announcing its new AirTag tracking device, the company officially revealed that its controversial iOS 14.5 update would be arriving "starting next week".

The roll-out of iOS 14.5, which includes the update for opt-in tracking, will begin from the 26th April.

Despite huge pushbacks and a chunky PR campaign from Facebook, Apple is pressing ahead with the roll-out, which had already been pushed back from last year.

As previously reported in a blog post about iOS 14 earlier in 2021, the introduction of new privacy and tracking changes with the update are set to cause huge headaches for advertisers on the Facebook platform (and potentially beyond).

iOS 14.5 Update: What to Expect

The changes being introduced with next week's iOS 14.5 update will impact campaign set up, targeting options, delivery, measurement, and reporting for those advertising on Facebook.

In their own update directly to advertisers, Facebook has said:

Expect a gradual adoption: We expect people will update their devices slowly over several weeks. As a result, we do not expect an immediately noticeable impact to iOS event reporting once Apple enforces its ATT prompt.

iOS 14.5 devices will be opted-out by default: When a user updates to iOS 14.5 and launches the Facebook or Instagram apps, our system detects the update and automatically opts them out on that device.

This will trigger the rollout of new measurement protocols for apps and the web. These are Apple’s SkAdNetwork API (SKAN) and Facebook’s Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) respectively.

iOS 14.5 Update: Immediate Changes

  • App advertisers without SKAN will be unable to create campaigns targeting users on iOS 14.5, and any existing campaigns will stop delivering to those users

  • 1-day click-through opt-out data will be modelled

  • 7-day click-through and 1-day view-through attribution

  • Attribution setting default will change to a 7-day click-through for newly created ad sets and web event campaigns

  • 28-day click-through, 7-day view-through, 28-day view-through attribution settings will be fully deprecated along with the Comparing Windows feature

iOS 14.5 Update: Eventual Changes

AEM rollout will be over a 14 day period. Once 100% rolled out, the new AEM experience will include:

  • All advertisers are subject to the 8 events per domain limit for optimisation in campaign creation

  • Ad sets will be paused if they are optimising for an event that is not configured for AEM

  • Ads that have not selected a domain for tracking will also be paused

Important to also note that any changes in AEM, including reprioritisation of events, will automatically pause ad sets for 72 hours as a ‘cooling off' period

iOS 14.5 Update: How to Make Sure You're Prepared

There are several ways that we're strongly recommending advertisers and our own clients to prepare for the changes introduced by iOS 14.5.

These have been covered in greater detail in this recent iOS 14 blog post. However, below is a checklist for what you should have covered off before next week as a minimum.

✅ Verify domain in Business Manager Settings

✅ Set up Conversions API through Events Manager (easy partner integrations available, see more here)

✅ Configure your web events through the new Aggregated Event Management tab you'll see in Events Manager.

Remember: Any ad sets optimising towards an event not configured will pause.

Final Thoughts

As iOS 14.5 and its changes haven't yet rolled out, we still don't know exactly what its impact is going to be.

Having said that, there are a number of steps we're recommending be taken by all Facebook advertisers to soften the potential blow of the update.

Of course, if you have any question, or require support with the above, please get in touch and we'll do our best to help. You can get in touch here >>>